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Wednesday 30 September 2020
Some people are much more affected by Covid-19 than others. There are several reasons for this. As researchers are discovering, one of them resides in genes. More precisely, in a DNA sequence that dates back to Neanderthals.
A certain genetic variant inherited from Neanderthals increases the risk of a severe course of Covid 19 disease. According to a press release, Hugo Zeberg and Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig found that people with this genetic variant will have to be artificially ventilated when infected with the coronavirus.
Some people are much more affected by Covid-19 than others. There are several reasons for this, such as old age or previous illnesses. An international study also showed that a group of genes is associated with an increased risk of serious disease. The Leipzig researchers have now discovered that this DNA sequence came from Neanderthals.
“It turns out that modern humans inherited this genetic variant from Neanderthals when they intermixed with each other around 60,000 years ago,” Zeberg explained. This genetic risk variant is particularly common in people from South Asia, where about half the population carries the Neanderthal variant in their genome. In Europe, one in six people inherited the risk variant, while it is practically nonexistent in Africa and East Asia.
However, the study cannot explain why people with this genetic variant are at higher risk. Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute, called it “terrifying that the genetic legacy of Neanderthals is having such tragic effects during the current pandemic.” Why this is so must now be investigated.
